House Passes Insurance Bill, Senate Expected to Follow

[Honky Tonk]

Insurance is parasitic by its very nature. It feeds on FEAR.

Including required text.

Cute posts. When you're lying there on life support, and the maintenance man has his hand on the plug, and some woman with a TouchPad is standing over you asking "do you have any other kyaks you can sell?", or you're in court, staring @ your shoes, and some guy with donut around his neck, is telling the judge how he's suffered permanent, dibilitating injuries because of your driving habits, take solace in the fact you were clever enough not to be suckered into that insurance scam. In lieu of some of the accident stories posted, I'd reconsider my position.

[Sandhouse]

I've read the bill a couple times now, and the Senate Fiscal Agency analysis, and much of the press coverage, and I have these tentative observations:

There is no protection against redlining of Detroit neighborhoods. But,

The high rates in Detroit are caused by the prevalence of ambulance-chasing pain clinics, medical-transportation providers, and tort lawyers. Not by crash or theft risk. So when the MCCA payouts are controlled by the fee schedule and people opting out, the fraudsters' access to the unlimited fund should be curtailed.

This will allow lower MCCA payouts. The mandatory audit should detect this and require refunds, even though no reduction is mandated in the MCCA charge of $222/year. The operative word is "should."

Savings should be available from two lines in your premium: the $222 for MCCA, and whatever you're paying for PIP. My rough guess is $400/year statewide average, maybe much more in Detroit, but only if you opt out of unlimited coverage. But I don't have much confidence in my guess.

$250,000 per injured person liability coverage is now mandatory. If you're carrying less, you will pay more now.

A lot will depend on how aggressive DFIS is about policing the rates. If they insist on geographic fairness, Detroit rates could fall, at the expense of slight increases in the suburbs and elsewhere. Likewise, women's rates could fall at the expense of men's. But who knows?

I don't think uninsured drivers are going to go away under this. Whoever hits you will still probably be an uninsured flake with no assets to sue for. This is especially true for what I call innocent bystanders: pedestrians and bicyclists. I think their coverage from the Placement Facility for uninsured drivers is limited to $250,000 in the new bill, although the figure of $2,000,000 is in the bill, too. This part I can't figure out. Does anyone know?